


The Way Home

by Pixie



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 20:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixie/pseuds/Pixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gunpowder takes a break from The Mechanisms, chasing the design of a machine from long ago. But will it lead him home, or will he be lost entirely?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Gunpowder isn't sure where the idea first comes from – it's familiar, the image printed in faint pencil lines in a battered old notebook he can visualise perfectly, but he can't quite place it. All he knows is that once the idea catches him, it refuses to let him go. It haunts his every step, blueprints drawing themselves in his dreams. Until finally, he decides to follow it.

“D'Ville!” he shouts down the corridor at the first mate's back. Jonny turns, gun drawn, and Gunpowder shakes his head. “Not this time. I'm...going away for a while.” D'Ville merely raises an eyebrow, letting him fill the silence swarming between them. “I'll be back. Soon. I just have something to finish.”  
“Got your comm?”  
“Of course. I'll call in when I'm back. Don't be late.” Jonny laughs.  
“I promise nothing.”  
  
He packs his bags with weaponry and sketches, before his hand lands on a notebook, buried under the mounds of prototypes. There's a strange sense of importance lingering about it, and he flicks it open. Just drawings – designs of things he'd built once, long...  
  
Gunpowder feels his vision blur, notes that the mechanics shouldn't allow for that, and finds his heart beating like a hummingbird's wings. Then the moment passes, and he adds it to the pile of paper he's taking with him. It sits there, nestled amongst guns and flamethrowers with two simple signatures on the front page.  
  
Tim.  
  
 _Bertie_.


	2. Chapter 2

He catches ships from port to port, paying however he can – an upgrade to their weaponry here, a murder there. Some weeks he spends at universities, others at the black market. And with each new material or elusive part, the dream grows stronger and the blueprints grow fuller - though not by his hand. There is someone next to him, but he cannot see their face. They stand out of sight, close but behind him, leaning over to add notes. And they do not speak.

The dreams grow more vivid as time goes on, details filling in around him. Once there was just a workbench, but now he can see the room – a small lab, with sketches pinned up wherever there is space on the wall. It feels familiar somehow, and Tim would call it home if he could.

Another planet, another contracted killing, and another piece of the puzzle. That night, he dreams of fire raining in the dark and a hand on his knee that he has seen before.

Parts of the machine begin to make sense to him – ideas matching up to theories he's seen explained in textbooks, materials reminiscent of those whispered about in university corridors. And as his vision grows, so do his dreams.

A voice, quiet in his ear, laughing as it crosses out a mistake.

A smile, flashing quickly and then vanishing as though it was never there.

And the fire, always the fire.

One night, he hits the wall. The blueprints have stopped growing and he sits in a poorly lit room, staring at the wall and the pieces arranged haphazardly on it. The mood takes him and papers fly as he digs through those he brought with him. His eyes have it all recorded, of course, but he still hesitates at the thought of learning to appreciate them. Paper after paper is tossed aside, blueprints torn up and flung into the street. His hair grows wild from running his hands through it, but his eyes do not weary – they never weary. And then his hand brushes a book. He flings it onto the table, almost pulling it apart with the speed he tears through it.

It's there. Three-quarters of the way through, after an unassuming design for a poison gas cannister (was he ever so boring?), he sees it. The handwriting is half his, half other, and it is in the other's handwriting that he finds the secret he's been looking for. He goes to turn away, to finish his design, but something holds him there. Something small, barely noticeable to anyone who hadn't been dreaming of this page for months. A single letter in some scratchy handwriting, right next to the section that he'd been unable to remember.

 _B_.

It is morning before Tim manages to tear his gaze away.


	3. Chapter 3

That night, he dreams of corpses. Mounds upon mounds of corpses, each one a face familiar to him. Some of them he put there himself, some of them he only remembers as backdrops to whatever chaos he'd been causing. But there is one sitting atop the rest that he cannot tear his gaze away from. It is a face he knows better than he knows his own these days, but he does not know why.

Gunpowder wakes with a start, and is surprised to find the notebook clutched tight to his chest. He tears it open, eyes scanning the blueprint, wondering what the hell he's been building all these months. And suddenly, it's there. Sitting openly in the bottom left corner, in the hand that is not his own, a description of what he's been building. Trans-dimensional portal, it says, though this is crossed out and there is nothing replacing it. Gunpowder simply stares, peals of laughter echoing in his ears – laughter that he knows was once his own.

_“You can't call it that!”_   
_“Why not?”_   
_“It sounds like something out of a story!”_   
_“And?”_

Tim turns the page, finds it blank and picks up the machine. There'd been a prototype once, a long time ago. He'd never – They'd never tested it themselves, hadn't had the time after the war began. The war. It's like a gunshot in his head, illuminating the darkness in the corners of his mind for a brief second, opening a wound he'd buried beneath blood and fire. A face.

It's not much, but Tim recoils, sending the machine skittering to the floor. There's a crack, and parts of it fall apart. That's all it takes for the moment to end, and for Gunpowder to snatch it back up, working frantically on the repairs.

He ignores the name pounding in his mind like a pulse.


	4. Chapter 4

He leaves the room the next day, catching the next ship out of town. The notebook sits in his bag, nestled next to the machine and a gun – everything else left for the scavengers to find, to use. There'll be a slaughter in the city, he's sure, but he cannot bring himself to care about any more corpses. Add them to the pile, he thinks, and laughs bitterly. Add them until they cover up that face.

Gunpowder knows he should test it – knows what it does now, knows how where it could take him. But that would involve opening the notebook again.

His comm unit buzzes, and for the first time in months, he answers. To his surprise, it is Ivy. “Gunpowder?” she asks, and he wonders what to say to her. “We've got a job I think you'll like.”  
“Oh?” is all he manages, his mouth dry.  
“Some revolution needs some planets ending – literally. They're paying us well enough, and I thought it would interest you. Besides, from what I can tell of your signal you're just a system away – should be quick enough to pick you up.”  
“Count me in.” More bodies to add to the pile, Gunpowder thinks.  
  
The reunion is quick, the Mechanisms familiar with members going off on their own for a while, never asking him what he's been up to. Ivy notes the lack of papers to return with him, but a smile and a wink persuades her he merely sold them. The job is easy enough – just a few moons to wipe out of existence, and a solar system that they've been requested to end. Ashes and Gunpowder set the sun to go nova, rig the moons with the appropriate amount of explosives, and then Brian sets a course to a spot that will provide them with a lovely view.

They watch as the sun flares, growing and bleeding outwards, waves of fires washing over the planets. They hadn't asked what the system had done, but Ivy had done her research – there'd been a recent religious movement that had been expanding a bit too rapidly. Nothing too exciting – a cult obsessed with purity, determined to convert all they met by choice or force. It was pleasant, in a way, to watch the sun burn out.

Then, the moons. One, two, three, they flare like flowers in spring and Gunpowder feels his skin burning. He can hear their screams, and looks around. No-one else seems to be able to hear, and he focuses on the fire before him. Bodies on the pile, he thinks, but the weight of the machine is heavy on his shoulders. It's over as quickly as it began, and D'Ville begins to decide on their next course. “Drop me off again,” Gunpowder says, the words leaving his mouth before he can stop them. “I'm not finished.”


	5. Chapter 5

It's another month before Tim can look at the machine again, and another month after that before he braves the notebook. Each night he dreams of that familiar corpse, it's unseeing gaze pinning him in place, absorbing every detail. Or is it remembering? That single curl, hanging over it's forehead, the army uniform spattered with blood. Occasionally there's a voice – it's soft, just out of hearing. “Stars, Tim...” and he turns to run towards it. But there's only the body. There's always the body.  
  
Finally, he opens it. His eyes scan every last detail, registering the differences in the handwriting. His own, highly theoretical, all equations and grand ideas. And the other, quicker, results-focused, giving names to his inventions. There's a third group of handwriting written in the margins – all insults and bile, but he barely notices it. He's about half way through when the other handwriting takes over half of the page.

 _Tim,_  
 _This is absolutely brilliant! But I'm thinking we could make it a little bit easier to use – you can see on the diagram at point A where I've sketched in some additional details. That should make it easier to control, and it shouldn't lose too much of it's efficiency. Let me know what you think._  
 _Bertie._  
  
And that's the name. Suddenly, everything makes sense. Without thinking, Tim finds himself walking over to the machine, turning it over in his hands. It had been a joke, a game – just how smart could they be when working together? No-one had ever attempted to go dimension hopping before, but Bertie was a genius – and so was he. Maybe they'd find a world without the war, a world where they wouldn't have to sketch weapons to get by. They'd design spaceships – start a new era for the world, where colonies could fly further than the largest telescopes could see. But then the news had broken, and they'd left their prototype behind. A thought seizes him, burrowing through the mound of corpses, down the open wound he'd covered with their rot. Maybe there's a world without the war out there now. Maybe...

Tim sets a course, the notebook firmly in his pocket, and heads for home.


End file.
